The invention relates generally to motor vehicle operation and, more specifically, to analyzing traffic light patterns and providing traffic light status notifications to drivers.
A large number of accidents happen at traffic light intersections, where vehicles approaching have no information about the current state of the light, other than what the driver is able to observe. In many cases, drivers approaching intersection may increase their speed to make it through the light rather than using precaution to avoid potentially hitting upcoming traffic from other directions.
Currently, vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication is being developed that will allow vehicles to communicate with each other as well as other devices such as traffic lights. However, implementing this communication protocol such that the existing traffic lights can provide light status information directly to approaching vehicles will require a large cost burden and take a significant amount of work to retrofit or replace existing traffic lights.